


A Memory of Slaughter

by ch1ps0h0y



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 06:05:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2337890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ch1ps0h0y/pseuds/ch1ps0h0y
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if he had the chance to go back and change the course of a life?</p><p>A what-if fic featuring Mukuro and Lancia. (Originally posted to DW journal on Dec 3, 2013)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Memory of Slaughter

His dreams are haunted by a phantom dressed in white rags, an innocent face beaming with a smile as sharp as the pointed tines their little hand holds. Dried blood streaked across their front, and laughter hollow and cruel. The phantom holds out its hands to him, fingers beckoning towards the carnage that he suddenly notices at their feet: the dead and dying piled in a groaning, piteous heap. Yet even though revulsion twists his gut, his feet drag along the blood-slicked tiles and come to a halt before the young, grinning demon.

Their hand is held palm up, waiting for him to take it.

But as their fingers touch he wakes with a violent shudder, eyes flying open then squeezing shut as an onslaught of light hits his retinas. The dream is the same as the one he had the night before, and the night before that. Every night the same nightmare. Every night the same laughing demon. They leave such a lingering mark that he hardly remembers what he used to dream about before them.

When he dares open his eyes again, the demon's face hovers above him.

Blood running cold, he reacts quicker than thought. Quicker, even, than might be humanly possible. The gun always kept under his pillow digs into the demon's forehead before his mind processes the action, finger about to squeeze the trigger before shock freezes it, freezes him in place before he can fire.

A young boy stares at him, blue eyes wide not with glazed madness but with terror.

_They are not the same._

 

Luciano, he calls the boy. 'Light'. Because the contrast between waking and dreaming is as stark as the difference between night and day. Care of the boy is given to him, a boy so meek and quiet that he cannot reconcile the images of death and slaughter that flash past his eyes whenever he sees them. Every shy smile seems sly, every sidelong glance seems to hold malignant purpose. He tries to shake off the ill feeling he gets whenever he sees them grasp a fork but the memory (dream) persists of a hand, face, body smeared in gore and bodies piled high, silver tines dripping blood.

The strangest thing is that he feels like he's seen it before. Feels like he's lived these nightmares before in another life.

When he walks the halls of the family mansion, flashbacks of tattered curtains and broken corpses flicker at the corner of his eyes. Faces mutilated beyond recognition. The smouldering remains of a once-proud coat of arms hanging in the study. Blood, fire, and suffocating guilt.

Why does he feel like their deaths are on his hands?

The family starts to give him strange looks. He's not the strange one, he wants to cry out. But they don't see the ruins of their happy life strewn about like the pieces of the jigsaw he gave that boy the other day. A puzzle of misshapen pieces. Only he is tormented by the demon in white. Only he sees how their family dies. He is the mad one, not they.

(The irony of it hurts.)

The young boy sits on the playroom floor with their back to him, unaware of their caretaker's madness. They quietly and patiently picks out the pieces which form the puzzle's edge while his finger traces the handle of the gun at his hip. If he kills the boy now, will the visions end? Will he be able to tell dream from reality again? He frequently remembers (dreams of) murdering at the order of a snide voice in his head, and then waking in the middle of a corridor with no memory as to how he arrived there. When he looks down expecting to see a knife, all his fingers grasp is a hilt of air.

Is there really a difference between the two for him?

He leaves before his hands are tempted to slip his gun out of its holster. So he doesn't see the boy relax his white-knuckled grip on a letter opener filched earlier from the study, their small shoulders slumping in relief.

 

Summer sweeps in and covers the fields around the manse with a carpet of gold stalks and meadow flowers. Hot, dry winds flatten them in broad strokes as they gust across the sloping hills, no cooler at night than it is during the day. The heat makes sleep restless for more than one, sweat leaving sheets damp as many toss and turn. And yet for him, the oppressive warmth still fails to stifle the recurring nightmares of six years past.

Until one night, when the nightmare changes. He stands on a hill brimming with white flowers, the wind not hot and heavy but cool. There's no sun in the sky yet its bright blue all the same, and rolling away below his feet is a gentle hill that leads to a wide lake of glittering water. This is the copse beyond the rise: a clearing often visited by the family on more pleasant days. The treeline halts at the hill's crest, turning this small valley into a tiny oasis.

At the lake's edge stands his demon. But their white rags are not torn and filthy any longer. They face away from him, gazing out over the surface of the water as the wind buffets their hair and their clothes. He descends towards them, feet moving as he wills them for once and not at the demon's behest. A short distance away he halts, and waits.

The demon does not turn, nor does it speak. And yet, he hears their voice in his head as clearly as if they were spoken words, the conversation playing like a memory from long ago.

 _I'm going away,_ they say. _Leaving._

_Where?_

_Far east. Across the sea._ A flicker of red-blue eyes as the demon turns, with that sly smile he's so used to. He blinks and sees only fluttering hair. No eyes. No smile. No face.

_Come with me._

Yes, he thinks to himself, and takes a step forward before he forces himself to halt. Why does he feel compelled to follow? All that waits down this path is death and misery and anger. A rotting husk of a place he once called home, cold iron bars and a name that is not his own. A heart hardened and closed like a steel ball etched with the twisted lines of their deceit.

Why, he wonders? He stares at the back of the demon's head and realises: it's different now. He has a choice.

"No."

The wind gusts stronger, pushing him back, pushing him away from the young boy who was once a demon. He throws up an arm and shuts his eyes against the gale, unable to see the wraithlike hands which cup his face or the lips that leave behind a kiss not of greeting but of farewell.

"Wait!" he shouts at the wind, but the ground vanishes beneath his feet and he wakes with a start in his bed. Heart pounding, sheets damp, a ghostly tingle on his cheek.

And the dream that wasn't a dream fades out of mind, leaving him with nothing but a memory of light.


End file.
